


he touched me, so i live to know

by parabellum



Category: Marvel, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Character, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Male MJ, Mutual Pining, Parental Abuse, Self-Harm, Yearning, you can pry bi peter from my cold dead body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29265438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parabellum/pseuds/parabellum
Summary: People aren't meant to stay in his life. Just this once, MJ allows himself to grieve over the fact.
Relationships: Peter Parker/MJ Watson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	he touched me, so i live to know

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank Alex for her endless patience and incredible feedback. Thank you to Sumama for her neverending support and relentless hype. And last, but certainly not least, one enormous thank you to Al, who's been putting up with this silly little idea for months and this silly little universe for even longer. Thank you, I love you endlessly.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. Hope you enjoy! If anyone wants to come scream about this or just be friends, you can find me on twitter @pateIsdev !

i. Touch is easy.

It’s holding Gigi’s hand as they run through the playground. 

It’s fall and the air is cold. It bites into his cheeks but his smile refuses to fade. 

He’s faster than her. _Quick, quick boy_. He drags her along through trees and mud, her complaints a shriek lost to the leaves he rips from branches. He likes the way they snap back in place. It won’t take him long to understand anger in movement.

Back home, Mom is crying in the kitchen. Something tugs at his heart and takes hold of it - _worry_. Gigi told him worry is a hand on your chest, a painful thing pushing down until your ribs creak with the force of it. Mom turns around and her face is dry but she’s sad. MJ knows. Sees it in her puffy eyes, her runny nose. Mom is sad and he doesn’t really know why but she always holds him when he’s sad so he does the same.

His arms wrap tightly around her shoulders. The tears come back but it’s easy to hold her. This he knows.

ii. Touch is sour.

It bruised and hurt and stayed. 

His dad caught him wearing one of Gigi’s skirts. He didn’t listen when MJ told him they were only playing. He stands in the mirror praying to anyone who will listen to stop crying. Men don’t cry but he’s only a boy and the tears fall unbidden, unwanted, unwelcome. 

Gigi finds him before he has time to pull his shirt back down. She holds him. He sobs. It’s a broken thing. His chest feels exposed, open for the taking and everyone is starved, devouring his insides like the sweetest candy. People take, take, take.

Philip takes. Rips the joy out of the walls, crushes them against his skin as if knuckles could carry love. Dad. He doesn’t want to call him Dad anymore. Mom says he doesn’t have to. She kisses his head and rubs his chest, each stroke shutting it closed. 

He realizes people will only take what they see, so he keeps his chest sealed, his heart tucked away, only for Mom and Gigi to peak in.

iii. Touch is soothing.

It’s soft hands braiding his sister’s hair, dark strands woven tightly over her head. It doesn’t look as good as when Mom does it. Actually, she kind of looks like a chicken. The thought makes him laugh so he shares it.

Gigi doesn’t like it, flings her doll back at him as he cackles in the corner. He flinches, dodges away. _Quick boy, always running_. He keeps laughing. Eventually, she joins in. His stomach hurts with a pleasant ache as he falls to the floor. If they’re loud enough, they can almost drown out the yelling in the other room.

No matter how hard they laugh, screams still echo through the halls. 

But Gigi’s hand takes hold of his own and maybe like this, lying on the floor with their backs to the door, they can pretend the world isn’t so loud.

At night he hugs Mom. She’s sad. She’s always sad these days. He’s starting to understand why. He holds her. Tight, tight, tight. He always feels better after she holds him. He hopes the same can happen for her. He just wants her to be happy again. 

When he holds her, no harm comes. There’s no yelling. He likes the quiet. She holds him back. Tight, tight, tight.

For a moment, he feels invincible.

iv. Touch is a cry of relief.

Philip leaves. Or he’s kicked out. MJ’s not sure for a while. 

He wants to cry. Which is silly. Crying is for when you’re sad and MJ has never been so happy.

It’s cuddling Mom in the bare mattress of their new apartment. It’s playing with giant cardboard boxes, dragging Gigi around. She tickles him on the floor and he giggles louder than necessary. Because when there’s silence there’s coughing and wheezing breaths and he doesn’t like the quiet anymore.

So he gives it his all into the stories he tells. Rehearses them over and over on the school bus so that by the time he gets back every joke is perfectly delivered, every punchline met with raucous laughter. 

He fills the house with noise until it becomes home. Blasts songs in his room until they reverberate through his chest when it feels like his heart doesn’t want to do this anymore. 

v. Touch is new.

It’s changing schools and meeting people. 

The boy in Math who makes him nervous. The one who sits behind him and whispers jokes into his ear as if they’re secrets, precious thoughts to be held by MJ’s consciousness alone. 

He gets a question right and the boy pats his shoulder to congratulate him. It burrows its way deep into his skin, sinks right to his bones. MJ wants, wants, wants. His desire is enormous, an all-consuming presence that disgusts him. 

He wishes a simple brush of fingers wouldn’t make him so hungry, so desperate for more. He’s human and he aches. It seems it’s all he does.

It’s running his hands through the stage floor, a thrill like he has never felt before pumping through his veins. He belongs here. This he knows.

It’s laying across his classmate’s lap in English and having her nearly shove him to the floor. They don’t know each other, not yet. But her mind is fascinating and her attitude is terrifying and MJ thinks he would fall for her if he could. He tries. He can’t.

It’s a bit scary. His father’s beliefs still sting through his back. But he refuses to let Philip take anything else.

He befriends her. She begrudgingly accepts. Her name is Elizabeth but she prefers to be called Betty. MJ thinks it suits her. He even catches a glimpse of the smile she tries to hide when he tells her that. 

He tells her things he’s never had anyone to tell to before. She listens, gives commentary, even (especially) when unsolicited. He enjoys it. It’s fun; to have a friend. 

People aren’t made to stay in MJ’s life. He’s known this for a while. It still hurts when they go, he hasn’t learned how to make it stop. The boy from Math stopped talking to him. He knows why. He doesn’t want to think about it.

Betty’s there for him. Surprisingly. Not because he thought she wouldn’t but because he can’t believe she did. He decides to hold on, hopes she won’t let go.

When he clings to her, she doesn’t flinch.

vi. Touch is violence. 

It’s shoving Gigi’s boyfriend off of her. It’s clenched fists, a blaze in his hands he oh so desperately wants to unleash on this bastard. He rears his arm and suddenly he’s back in that house, fist raised onto a sobbing child and something in him shatters. 

He takes Gigi back home. Leaves as soon as Mom gets back. He doesn’t know how to touch without breaking. Maybe he’s more like his father than he ever cared to be.

He is fury in motion. It bleeds out of him with every turn of the stage. The wood snaps beneath his hands, burns his fingers and bruises his legs. He loses himself in it. 

His mind is at war. It hasn’t been quiet for a while. He’s thankful for that. There is no peace in silence.

vii. Touch is prodding.

It’s trailing fingers over the black and blue in his thighs. Nails raking over the skin, catching on scratches that haven’t had time to heal. He picks on them, scrapes them over until blood comes to the surface. The sting crawls its way up until there’s iron in his mouth.

An odd sense of euphoria rattles through his chest, comes out in heavy breaths. If he peels back the skin, there will be blood underneath. This is certainty. This is control.

It’s soothing. Overwhelming. His heart beats itself mad against his ribs.

It doesn’t really work. Not in the long run.

He goes back home and Mom looks worse every day and he doesn’t want to leave her alone but he can’t stand to look at her anymore. 

So he closes his hands into fists, lets the nails bite into his palms, and talks to her in the softest voice he can manage. 

viii. Touch is numb.

Gigi clings to him as they lower the casket but he doesn’t really feel it. Eventually, he brings his arms around her in what he hopes is a soothing manner. It’s distant, like he’s not really there.

It’s as if some twisted, depraved part of himself enjoys this. This all-consuming void enveloping his lungs and ripping all the air out. He shuts his eyes and images of her flash through. Fleeting, floating, foolishly ignorant.

Gone.

His teacher tells him the choreography isn’t meant to be so aggressive but he didn’t mean to make it so. _No longer a boy, not yet a man, but you never stop running, little one, do you?_ There’s lead in his bones and smoke in his lungs. Incessantly suffocating.

A horrible dance he can’t stop. All the steps are ingrained in his brain.

ix. Touch is tender.

Tommy is born. And the smoke begins to lift.

He holds his nephew with all the care in the world. The lightest of hands smoothes the puff of hair on his tiny little head. He doesn’t remember the last time touch was this delicate. He’s terrified he’s going to hurt him.

Gigi laughs. When her hand reaches over he can’t hesitate. Holding her is a conscious thought and he feels it all. Her fingers squeezing his palm, the drag of her thumb across the back of his hand.

There’s a lump in his throat and a sting in his eyes. He doesn’t want to miss a single moment. 

When Tommy is fast asleep in his mother’s chest, he allows the tears to fall. They grow fat and blur his vision. Feeling them stream down his face is oddly cathartic.

Maybe they can start over. A different kind of family, maybe a little worse for the wear. A little broken and bruised, but family. _Finally_.

x. Touch is hectic.

It’s rushing through senior year. Dragging Betty to his room for final judgement of his monologue for the play. 

It’s trading experimental costumes and highlighted scripts with everyone. It’s helping Amy fix the hole in her tights and the hug she gives him afterwards. It’s shoving a hundred pins into Omar’s hair and praying the wig will hold, and the kiss he plasters on his cheek. 

Touch is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Words are complicated where touch is easy. There’s no deceit in a hug, no lie in a kiss. MJ is a tactile person, perhaps out of necessity, or maybe that’s just who he was meant to be.

The curtains come down and suddenly a dozen limbs are all around him. He’s engulfed in tears and sweat and he is so happy he thinks his chest might burst open. Laughter rings through the room and fills his heart to the brim. 

He wishes he could bottle this feeling. Keep it safe and away from prying hands. Physical proof that MJ Watson was, even if once, truly happy.

He really hopes he gets into ESU.

xi. Touch is healing.

It’s walking into Dr. Kafka’s office and having someone see through him so quickly he feels dizzy. It’s Gigi’s soothing hand stroking his back, unwinding his ribs until his chest is open again and he can truly, honestly speak. 

It’s uncomfortable but it’s good. He didn’t think anyone would ever see his heart again after Mom passed away.

Betty sobs against his chest as her own head is shrouded by worry and doubt. He rubs her back, repeats the Doctor’s words. 

Perhaps MJ Watson is meant to be broken. It feels better to give little pieces of himself to those who need it.

Betty apologizes. MJ shushes her with a kiss to the forehead. She pushes him until he’s falling off the chair. Laughing is easy.

It’s meeting Betty’s friend, the one she won’t shut up about. It doesn’t take him long to decide he’d move heaven and hell to keep one Liz Allan content and cared for. There’s a peace about her, one that surrounds her very essence and reflects onto every living thing. He’s soothed by her presence. By kind eyes and soft words.

Yeah, he understands why Betty fell for her.

xii. Touch is, for the first time, confusing.

You see, Liz has this friend. Well, friends, actually. However, as special as Flash Thompson is, it only takes them one wild 2 AM supermarket trip to firmly establish each other as friends.

This other friend of hers, however... Tall. Big, doe eyes. Seems kind of gangly at first, drowns in clothes that are too big for him. But then summer hits and not even the Coffee Bean’s precious air conditioning system can save them from the heatwave, and MJ has to make a conscious effort not to gawk at his arms in that perfectly fitted t-shirt.

And touch is confusing because so is Peter Parker.

Usually patting someone on the back is the easiest of affairs - but Peter’s reaction! He shivers, a discreet thing for anyone not standing so close to him, but before MJ can retract his hand and apologize, he eases into it like a mewling cat in the sun.

And, well, MJ doesn’t really know what to make of it.

Maybe it isn’t that touch is easy. Maybe it’s just second nature. Sometimes following your gut is the hardest.

He swings his legs over Peter’s lap. He becomes tense, pulled so taut MJ is sure he just hurt him. He doesn’t have time to move away because, in the blink of an eye, Peter relaxes and his hand moves to rest over MJ’s calf.

Peter looks back at him, a shy smile growing on his lips. A fragile thing for MJ’s eyes only. 

The place where Peter’s hand rests is incredibly warm. He doesn’t want it to stop. He wants to burrow into it, dive and melt as if lava were never a harmful thing. Peter’s fingers move in the softest caress and MJ feels it like lightning through his body, flicks of energy that scramble his neurons and send his heart into overdrive. It pounds against his ribcage, desperate beats begging to be heard.

_You never did stop running, did you? There’s no race but you’re still alone in the lead. Are you scared of falling behind or that someone will catch you?_

xiii. Touch is terrifying.

It goes like this: 

The two of them are in the subway. It’s crowded, people want to go home. Their destination is not so clear. MJ stopped paying attention a while ago, possibly when Peter started telling him a story.

If you asked him, he’s not really sure he could tell you what it is about. The way Peter’s face moves is hypnotic. How his eyes glint with amusement. How his lips curl around the words. Words for MJ to hold and keep. 

They both lean against the same railing, maybe standing a bit closer than necessary. Their hands almost touch. But distance is relative. Looking ahead it may be a short thing but if he looked down he couldn’t possibly measure how hard the fall would be. So he teeters on the edge, thrives in the rebellion of ignoring logic and reason, and tells himself this is enough.

He still aches to touch.

Actually, it goes like this:

He’s waiting for Peter in his apartment. Flash is spending the night over… somewhere. He knows Peter doesn’t like to be alone. He knows why.

But he has his own secrets, too. His back still stings and his chest is a paper fortress. 

He’s in the kitchen when he hears something clatter. It’s in Peter’s room. He grabs the closest thing he can find, a pair of scissors lying in the counter, and rushes over, as quietly as he can.

_You run and run and run, but are you fast enough?_

He flings the door open and his heart plummets to the floor.

And a secret isn’t a secret anymore.

Peter’s on the ground. He’s wearing a costume, _the_ costume. And MJ knew. Really, he did. But when he saw him flying through the air, he always seemed untouchable. People take, take, take but from that far up Peter can escape them.

There are things more dangerous than ravenous people, and all of them covet after Peter.

Peter’s on the ground. He’s wearing the costume but it’s torn, ripped open with gaping wounds on his chest, his arms, his legs. His lip is busted open and his eye is swollen shut.

Distance is relative. By the time he notices, he’s already crossed the room, kneeling beside him. He went over the edge. He doesn’t know if he stuck the landing.

“MJ…” Peter whispers. A weak thing, like gravel in his throat.

“Shut up.” MJ isn’t angry but maybe it comes across as such. Fury and fear are so very close to being the same.

He patches Peter up. Gets him out of the costume and swallows down a sob because pretending this is Spider-Man, would be so, so much easier. The blue comes off but the red stays and all MJ sees is Peter. Broken and bruised and small and it’s wrong, it’s all _wrong_. Peter is meant to be happy but he looks at MJ like despair is the only thing he knows and MJ doesn’t know if he wants to scream or cry.

He does neither. He cleans his wounds as best as he can, hands soft where his heart is jagged. 

And touch isn’t honest anymore. Because if he could - oh, if he could. He would dig into Peter’s skin and live under it, never to be parted. He would hold him, no rhyme or reason. Take his hand and run. 

_His whole life. He’s been running, too. Silly boy, you want him to run with you._

Or maybe, it goes like this: 

Peter is asleep. Moonlight filters through the window, leaving a hazy glow on his skin. If he closes his eyes just so, he can pretend he wasn’t just mending Peter back together, sewing love into his skin. If he closes his eyes, he won’t see his own chest gaped open, heart ready for the taking. People take, take, take. Peter doesn’t. Doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want him. 

Peter turns to face him in his sleep. His hand twitches. He could reach over and-

Distance is relative. If he’s being honest with himself, he jumped a long time ago. It was freefall then but it’s crashing to the floor now.

His hand drops to his chest. He tries to pick up the pieces, close it back up, but MJ Watson is meant to be broken. It’s easier to mend other people with scraps of yourself. 

People aren’t meant to stay in his life. Just this once, MJ allows himself to grieve over the fact.

xiv. Touch is empty.

He can’t bear the thought of Peter leaving, so he goes first.

He knows the street beneath his feet is rough, that the old door in his building is splintery and the rusty fire escape is cold. He doesn’t really feel it.

He lights a cigarette from the secret stash in the back of his closet and brings it up to his lips. He goes through the motions: inhale, hold, exhale. The cloud that filters through his nose is the only certainty he did it right.

It’s as if water is all around him, dark and dense and it drowns everything else. He wants to fight it. To lash out and scream until his throat is raw and there is nothing left of him. But there’s this bone-deep weariness weighing him down.

Maybe sinking wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe not peace exactly, but the absence of chaos.

The sun is rising and he’s three stories high.

He looks down.

Tommy’s cooing echoes into his room. He goes back inside.

xv. Touch is everything.

After the seventh time Gigi asks him what happened, he goes to the top of the building. 

The sky is bathed in orange and pink and light reflects off of every window it reaches. 

He takes a breath: inhale, hold, exhale. He can smell the asphalt slowly burning under the setting sun, even if his lungs don’t feel any lighter.

His hands grip the ledge, dust floats into the air.

He shuts his eyes, focuses on the noises of the city to drown out the thumping in his chest, the throbbing in his head. Cars drive, people walk, somewhere someone blasts a song. 

“MJ?”

He jerks away, scrambles off the ledge. A nervous laugh leaves his throat when he sees Peter standing there, the most genuine reaction MJ has had in a few days.

“Jeez, Pete, warn a guy.”

He shuffles awkwardly, eyes fixated on somewhere over MJ’s shoulder. “Sorry, I- I didn’t mean to startle you.” His hands fiddle with the ends of his sleeves and MJ’s heart stutters.

“It’s alright,” he dismisses.

He can tell Peter is trying to find the words to say, so he allows himself a moment to just look at him.

The sun hits his side, highlights the brow MJ haphazardly stitched together; it’s fully healed. The little freckles hidden in his eyelids. Makes his eyelashes cast long shadows, almost enough to hide the circles under his eyes. Accentuates his lip, trapped under his teeth as he gnaws at it.

He’s beautiful and MJ aches.

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispers, breath stammering out. More resolutely, he adds, “MJ, I am so sorry.”

MJ furrows his brows, purses his mouth, fakes a smile, “It’s alright.”

“It really isn’t.”

“Peter, it’s okay,” he insists, greedy eyes cataloguing every detail they can about this moment, “If you’re okay, the rest doesn’t really matter.”

But there’s this thing about Peter, about looking in his eyes and having him look back. It’s warmth spreading through MJ’s arms and a chill running down his spine. It’s the butterflies in his stomach, the havoc in his head. It’s the fortress he so carefully built over his chest crumbling down. It’s sunrays tickling his heart, fresh air cradling his lungs.

It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating.

It’s looking at him and realizing -

_It’s him. It has always been him, and always will be. Broken boy with a broken heart. You can have mine._

“I was afraid. That if you knew, you would…”

The words hang in the air and MJ scoffs at them. At the idea that he would be anything other than a body made to love. It makes him restless, leaves him despaired. Tears at his flesh and oozes out. It’s a universal truth.

The sky is blue. The sun is bright. MJ Watson is in love with Peter Parker.

“I wouldn’t worry about that.”

Distance is relative. Peter takes the step. The world goes quiet.

He calls him. MJ hears it, distantly. Sees the question in his eyes, the plea in his lips.

MJ feels the warmth seeping out of him, the breath that leaves his nose and how it tickles MJ’s cheek.

He kisses him.

And he feels it all.

Peter’s chapped lips, the trail of goosebumps his hands leave until they settle on his face, how his fingers caress the nape of his neck.

Overwhelming. All-encompassing. Magic.

His heart may have burst and his lungs don’t know how to work anymore. It's an addiction. It’s weaving his hand into Peter’s hair and feeling the softness of the strands. It’s gripping his shirt and pulling him closer, closing the chasm. 

Distance is gone.

Peter curls his arm over his waist and holds him, hands shaking with the force of it like he has to hold back.

Eventually, they pull apart. Not enough to be separated, just enough to get air. Their chests heave as MJ traces the line of his collarbone. Peter’s hands sit restless, thumb caressing his hip. They haven’t opened their eyes.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a while,” MJ admits.

“Kiss me senseless?” 

He laughs softly, hides his face in Peter’s chest, “Something like that.”

Peter kisses the top of his head and something like spiders slither their way through his ribs.

They have to talk. And they will. But for now, they hold each other and bask in the feeling of being loved.

And it’s not about choice, not really. Be it fate, destiny, or just sheer dumb luck. He’s been doomed since the beginning, never stood a chance. But he finds that even so, even still - in a thousand different lifetimes, in a thousand different worlds, he’d find him and he’d choose him.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, this all started as one of my many many rants to Al, revolving around this world of a hypothetical TASM3. Heavily inspired by Andrew's attempt at exploring Peter's sexuality and having a male MJ. And then it snowballed into its own entire universe and yeah here we are. I can go on and on about this so I'm gonna shut up and again thank you so so incredibly much for reading, this is my first time posting anything on here so my nerves are through the roof ANYWHO I LOVE YOU ALL!


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